American comic strip, 1923-1991
For the baseball and basketball player, see
Moon Mullen
.
For the radio presenter and musician Paul "Moon" Mullins, see
WBZI
.
Moon Mullins
is an American
comic strip
which had a run as both a daily and Sunday feature from June 19, 1923, to June 2, 1991. Syndicated by the
Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate
, the strip depicts the lives of diverse lowbrow characters who reside at the Schmaltz (later Plushbottom)
boarding house
. The central character, Moon (short for
Moonshine
), is a would-be prizefighter—perpetually strapped for cash but with a roguish appetite for vice and high living. Moon took a room in the boarding house at 1323 Wump Street in 1924 and never left, staying on for 67 years. The strip was created by
cartoonist
Frank Willard
.
Origins and history
[
edit
]
Frank Henry Willard
was born on September 21, 1893, in
Anna, Illinois
,
[
citation needed
]
the son of a physician.
[
citation needed
]
He determined to become a cartoonist early in life. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts in
Chicago
in 1913,
[
citation needed
]
he was a staff artist with the
Chicago Herald
(1914–18), where he drew the Sunday kids' page
Tom, Dick and Harry
and another strip,
Mrs. Pippin's Husband
.
[
citation needed
]
He next wrote and drew
The Outta Luck Club
for
King Features Syndicate
(1919–23).
[
citation needed
]
In
The Comics
(1947),
Coulton Waugh
described Willard's art style as "gritty-looking".
[1]
In 2003, the
Scoop
newsletter documented the 1923 events that led to the creation of the strip:
Moon was a tough-talking, if generally good natured, kind of guy who took (and dealt) plenty of punches during his run. And actually, those are very appropriate characteristics. See, back before Moon was created, Frank Willard was working on a strip called
The Outta Luck Club
for King Features Syndicate. That's when he got the notion that some of his ideas were being slipped to fellow cartoonist
George McManus
(creator of
Bringing Up Father
). So, in typical
Moon Mullins
fashion, Willard approached McManus and gave him a wallop that knocked the latter out cold and got the former fired. That little episode didn't stop
Captain Joe Patterson
's interest from being piqued, however, and Willard soon set to work on a new strip for the
Chicago Tribune Syndicate
. That strip was
Moon Mullins
...
Ah, Moon Mullins! He made a horrible role model but a hilarious star nonetheless?as did his assorted pals ... Adventures included stints in jail, trysts with stolen cars, failed employment opportunities, misunderstandings and plenty of black eyes for all. Yet, there was a certain lightness to all of Moon's debaucheries that made his low-down ways pretty charming ...
[2]
Willard was in tune with the
working class
characters he created, as noted by David Westbrook in
From Hogan's Alley to Coconino County: Four Narratives of the Early Comic Strip
:
- Some comic strip artists laid claim to a similar working-class authenticity by representing themselves in the position of employee. When Frank Willard, author of
Moon Mullins
, narrates a scene from his workplace, he portrays himself as a rowdy underdog much like
The Yellow Kid
. He becomes, in effect, the "tricky and roguish" character cited by
Gilbert Seldes
as the quintessence of the comic strip.
- I worked for a syndicate manager once who got everybody in the place together once a week and jumped on a desk and gave us 'pep talks.' He didn't give us ideas, but, oh boy, how worn out we were after those pep talks. The guy that applauded the loudest got the most money, and I didn't get much?as he found out who it was who gave him
the bird
!|30|30|Frank Willard, as related to Martin Sheridan
- When Brennecke (in "The Real Mission of the Funny Paper" by Ernest Brennecke, from
The Century Magazine
, March 1924) locates the truth of comic strip realism in the comics' habit of "commenting trenchantly" on "the life of the middle classes," it is comics like
The Yellow Kid
and artists like Willard that he has in mind...
[3]
[4]
Characters and story
[
edit
]
- Moon Mullins
: With his big eyes, plaid pants, perpetual cigar and yellow
derby hat
, Moon is an amiable roughneck. He haunts saloons, racetracks and pool halls, mangles the English language with
Jazz Age
slang
, and gets into endless scrapes looking for an easy buck or a hot dame. Moon himself is a low-rent but likeable sort of riff-raff, involved in get-rich schemes and bootleg whiskey, crap games and staying out all night with disreputable friends. None of the roughhousing was fatal or even particularly threatening, however. Indeed, the gentleness of the situational humor behind all the characters' rough edges kept the strip on an even keel. The name "Moonshine" referenced Mullins as a drinker and gambler during
Prohibition
.
- Kayo
: Moon's street urchin kid brother, who sleeps in an open
dresser
drawer. Kayo is usually clad in suspenders,
polka dot
pants and a black derby. Pint-sized Kayo (a play on "K.O.,"
sportswriters
' shorthand for a
knockout
punch) is wise beyond his years and even a bit of a cynic. His plain-speaking, matter-of-fact bluntness is a frequent source of comedy.
Moon Mullins
#2 (February?March 1948) displayed reprints of the comic strip.
- Emmy (Schmaltz) Plushbottom
: the nosy, lanky, spinsterish landlady who likes to put on airs. She finally married on October 6, 1933, and became Lady Plushbottom. She says "My stars" and "For pity sakes" a lot, but her trademark line?always delivered after a (frequent) putdown?is "I'll
smack
your
sassy
face!"
- (Uncle) Willie
: Introduced in 1927, Moon's long lost, no-account uncle wears a checkered suit and is perpetually unshaven. Willie, who would disappear for months at a time, prefers the
hobo
life?despite being married and half-domesticated. His only occupation seems to be the avoidance of physical labor and confrontations with his formidable wife, Mamie.
- (Aunt) Mamie
: Miss Schmaltz's burly, no-nonsense washwoman and cook. Her rolled-up sleeves reveal a conspicuous star tattoo. She's the only featured character of the
working class
cast who actually works. Mamie is usually tolerant of her errant husband, but she can be dangerous when riled?much to Willie's dismay.
- Lord Plushbottom
: (aka "Plushie," as Moon calls him.) Willard introduced him because Patterson thought tossing a well-bred Englishman into that shabby crowd had great comic possibilities.
[
citation needed
]
Plushbottom initially appeared as a man of wealth, whom Emmy pursued for 10 years before their marriage. Afterward he moved in, in apparently reduced circumstances, but never discarded his evening clothes,
spats
and
top hat
for everyday wear.
- Egypt
: Emmy's beautiful
flapper
niece with the bobbed
Louise Brooks
coiffure, and Moon's sometime girlfriend.
- Mushmouth
: Moon's pal and much-maligned
step-and-fetch-it
.
- Kitty Higgins
: the star of Willard's "
topper
" strip about a precocious little girl and her maid,
Pauline
. Kitty eventually joined the
Moon Mullins
cast as Kayo's girlfriend.
After Johnson took over, other characters were added to the cast, including:
- Professor Byrrd
: an erudite, tweed-suited academic
- Myna Byrrd
: the Professor's lovely brunette daughter
- Miss Swivel
: a sexy blonde
stenographer
, frequently pursued by Moon
- Mr. Doodle
: an eccentric, temperamental artist
- Joke
: a cab driver
The strip was reviewed by Dr. Hermes in
Dr. Hermes Retro-Scans
:
It was never so hysterical that you felt you just had to clip it and show it to everyone you knew, but
Moon Mullins
was always enjoyable and funny in a low-key way. Frank Willard's art was better than it's given credit for, very smooth and subtle; but his real strength was in the amusing personalities he gave his characters. (Longtime assistant Ferd Johnson took over after Willard's death in 1958.) "Moonshine" Mullins, as his name hinted, was a shady sort of rogue, always in trouble and often in jail. His little brother Kayo was a tough guy in a derby and turtleneck; everyone remembers him as the kid who slept in a pulled-out dresser drawer. Running the boarding house was sour ol' Emmy Schmaltz (she later married insubstantial Englishman Lord Plushbottom.) Rounding out the continuing cast were the cook Mamie and her less than industrious husband Willie.
Moon Mullins
is not likely to be adapted into the new big Broadway musical (although you never know), but I always liked it and would like to see it remembered.
[5]
?
30, 30
The Sunday page's
topper strip
,
Kitty Higgins
, ran from December 14, 1930, to 1973.
[6]
: 227
Later years
[
edit
]
Ferd Johnson's
Moon Mullins
(January 3, 1959)
Ferdinand "Ferd" Johnson
(1905–1996) began as Willard's assistant a few months after the strip began in 1923. Starting with the lettering, then the backgrounds, Johnson gradually progressed to the point where he was handling the entire operation; but it was only after Willard's death that he began signing it. When Willard died suddenly on January 11, 1958, the Tribune Syndicate hired Johnson to helm the strip. Johnson's first credited strip ran on March 3, 1958.
[6]
: 276
(Frank Willard's tombstone at the Anna Cemetery in Anna, Illinois, is graced with an engraving of Moon Mullins.)
Ferd Johnson was born December 18, 1905, in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania.
[
citation needed
]
Johnson became interested in cartooning after winning the Erie (Pennsylvania)
Dispatch-Herald
cartoon contest at the age of 12.
[
citation needed
]
After finishing high school in 1923 he attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, but left school after only three months to take an assistant's job at the
Chicago Tribune
with Willard.
[
citation needed
]
While assisting on
Moon Mullins
, Johnson remained active with other
Tribune
projects. He created several comic strip features for the Syndicate?
Texas Slim
(1925–1928) and
Lovey-Dovey
(1932)?did sports illustration work, and produced advertising cartoons. In 1940, he revived Texas Slim in
Texas Slim and Dirty Dalton
(with the companion strip,
Buzzy
), which ran for 18 years.
By the time he took
Moon Mullins
, it had evolved from long story continuities to a gag-a-day strip. In 1978, Ferd's son, Tom Johnson, signed on as his assistant. Ferd Johnson stayed with the strip until it came to an end upon his retirement in 1991.
Frank Willard's
Moon Mullins
(March 3, 1942)
Decline and end
[
edit
]
Moon Mullins
appeared in 350 papers at its height but declined to 50. Johnson said, "They just kept dropping off because it's so damn old. The new ones come out and the editors want to make room for them, so the old ones get dumped. And
Moon
sure qualifies that way."
[7]
In April 1991, the
Chicago Tribune
dropped the strip, and the Tribune Media Syndicate told Johnson that it was the end. The last strip ran on Sunday, 2 June 1991.
[7]
Licensing and promotion
[
edit
]
Comic books and reprints
[
edit
]
The strip was reprinted in a long-running series of
Cupples & Leon
books (1927–1937),
Big Little Books
and comic books for
Dell Comics
(starting in 1936) and later, the
American Comics Group
(1947–1948).
Dover Publications
reprinted a collection of the daily strips in 1976, consisting of the third and fifth Cupples & Leon books. Representative samples of
Moon Mullins
daily continuity were featured in
Great Comics Syndicated by the Daily News-Chicago Tribune
(
Crown Publishers
, 1972), and
The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics
(
Smithsonian Institution Press
/
Harry Abrams
, 1977). The latter volume also reproduces several full-color Sunday pages. Comic strip historian
Bill Blackbeard
(1926?2011) edited a series of strip reprints for SPEC Productions.
Moon Mullins merchandise
[
edit
]
Moon Mullins
merchandising
[8]
began when agent
Toni Mendez
arranged a licensing deal for Kayo suspenders. The wave of products that followed included such items as a series of
Kellogg's Pep Cereal
pins, a
Milton Bradley
board game (1938), salt and pepper shakers, perfume bottles, Christmas lights, bisque toothbrush holders, a set of German nodder figures, carnival chalkware statues, a wind-up toy
handcar
,
[9]
oilcloth and celluloid Kayo dolls, coloring books and a series of
jigsaw puzzles
(1943).
Kayo Mullins chocolate drink
[
edit
]
Kayo Chocolate Drink
was the name of a bottled,
[10]
later canned,
[11]
chocolate-flavored milk drink
. Created in 1929 by Aaron D. Pashkow of Chicago,
[12]
[13]
it was bottled under authority of Chocolate Products, manufactured for decades,
[14]
and featured Kayo Mullins on its label.
[10]
It now only sold as a powdered hot chocolate mix distributed by
Superior Coffee and Tea
[15]
[16]
and
Smucker Foodservice Canada
[17]
for the foodservice market.
[18]
[19]
Radio
[
edit
]
In 1973, the
Moon Mullins
radio program was issued on this LP produced by George Garabedian for Mark 56 Records. The sleeve notes were by radio historian
Jim Harmon
.
Moon Mullins
was adapted for
radio
during the 1940s. In the third episode of the series (March 25, 1940), the Plushbottoms trade Moon's only suit to pay for a collect telegram and learn they are owners of a goldmine. In a
CBS
audition recording dated January 31, 1947, Uncle Willie asks Moon for $10 bail, and Moon teaches the game of
Blackjack
to Kayo. Lord Plushbottom plans to go to a costume party as an
Indian
but instead winds up with a suit of armor. Character actor
Sheldon Leonard
was in the cast.
Animation
[
edit
]
Cambria Studios
produced two sample episodes of a proposed
Moon Mullins
syndicated TV series with their
Syncro-Vox
animation process in the early 1960s, but it did not clear enough television stations to go into production. Comic actor and director
Howard Morris
was the voice of Moon when the strip was adapted to animation for
Archie's TV Funnies
(1971–1973), produced by
Filmation
. Moon and Kayo became one of several rotating segments on the Saturday morning cartoon series. Other comic strip character features in the rotation included
Broom-Hilda
,
Dick Tracy
,
The Captain and the Kids
,
Alley Oop
,
Nancy and Sluggo
and
Smokey Stover
. It was repeated in 1978, without
Archie
, under the title
Fabulous Funnies
.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Waugh, Coulton.
The Comics
, New York: Macmillan, 1947.
- ^
Scoop
: "Did You Know?", April 12, 2003.
- ^
Westbrook, David.
From Hogan's Alley to Coconino County: Four Narratives of the Early Comic Strip
, "The Culture of the Marketplace in the Strips"
- ^
Westbrook, David. "Bibliography"
- ^
Dr. Hermes, Dr. Hermes Retro-Scans, June 17, 2008.
Archived
August 15, 2011, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
a
b
Holtz, Allan (2012).
American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide
. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
ISBN
9780472117567
.
- ^
a
b
McLellan, Dennis (28 May 1991).
"After 68 Years, 'Moon Mullins' Will Shine for Last Time This Sunday"
.
Los Angeles Times
. Retrieved
2015-03-24
.
- ^
- ^
- ^
a
b
"Signs of Sodas - KAYO DRINK REAL CHOCOLATE FLAVOR Original 1930s Embossed Tin Vertical Sign"
.
SodaPopBottles.com
. Archived from
the original
on 29 October 2015
. Retrieved
30 June
2023
.
- ^
"KAYO-Chocolate soda-281mL-United States"
.
CanMuseum.com
. Retrieved
6 May
2021
.
- ^
"ABCB Show"
.
Billboard
. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 29 November 1947
. Retrieved
6 May
2021
.
The Chocolate Products Company, Chicago, displayed its Kayo Chocolate drink in an Ideal dispenser, with A. D. Pashkow in attendance.
- ^
"Aaron D. Pashkow, 90, of Chocolate Products"
.
Chicago Tribune
. 1986-04-17. Archived from
the original
on 2013-12-19
. Retrieved
6 May
2021
.
- ^
Archived at
Ghostarchive
and the
Wayback Machine
:
"Kayo Chocolate-Flavored Drink (Commercial, 1974)"
.
Museum of Classic Chicago Television
.
YouTube
. Retrieved
6 May
2021
.
Here's a commercial for Kayo Chocolate-Flavored Drink, which could be served either hot or cold. Made with fresh skim milk. Kayo was famous for being among the prizes won by lucky children who entered into contests held daily on Steve Hart's Popeye on 44 (later to be called Popeye With Steve Hart). "Spell it K-A-Y-and-O, O, O, O, O!" This aired on local Chicago TV on Friday, October 4th 1974 during the 3:30pm to 4pm timeframe.
- ^
"Coffee Distributors & Coffee Programs Hayward, CA"
.
Farmer Brothers
. Retrieved
6 May
2021
.
- ^
"The Superior Coffee Collection"
.
Farmer Brothers
. Retrieved
6 May
2021
.
- ^
"Kayo Cocoa Drink Concentrate | Smucker Foodservice Canada"
.
Smucker Away From Home Canada
. Retrieved
6 May
2021
.
- ^
"Kayo Supreme Gourmet Hot Cocoa, 24 oz., 6/Carton (SMU06346)"
.
Quill.com
. Retrieved
6 May
2021
.
- ^
"Kayo Cocoa Drink Concentrate Case"
.
FoodServiceDirect
. 19 January 2021. Archived from
the original
on 19 January 2021
. Retrieved
6 May
2021
.
Sources
[
edit
]
Milton Bradley marketed this board game in 1938.
- Strickler, Dave
.
Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index.
Cambria, California: Comics Access, 1995.
ISBN
0-9700077-0-1
- Harvey, Robert C.
The Art of the Funnies: An Aesthetic History
. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994), esp. pp. 97?98.
External links
[
edit
]